CE Wells Cathedral Wed, 25th Sept 2019 [A]

[ardcarp]

Going back to CE, it is understandable that choirs with child choristers may not be keen on a September broadcast. But there are many churches/colleges with adult choirs...eg St Matthew's Westminster which did Sunday Worship this morning.

By the way, does anyone have the stats for live versus repeat CEs over the past couple of years?

[DracoM]

I might, but frankly, it will take AGES to do!

[jonfan]

Still wrong thread but a host has replied so here goes.
BBC is now the only organisation in the arts that has a substantial input to arts education in schools through its website. Without it many fine orchestras would disappear and who would take on the proms, the world’s greatest music festival? I’ve been editing some archive recordings from the 70s and 80s and believe me I don’t want to go back to such patronising programme presentation or such frankly undistinguished orchestral playing by today’s standards. I don’t wish to lose what we’ve got today and if you want continuous music get your recorders programmed.

[CallMePaul]

Returning to topic, does no-one involved in programming have any idea of the Church's year? March falls in Lent, with its own special music and relevant readings. Yesterday was the 14th Sunday after Trinity, so why not a relevant broadcast, or possibly something to anticipate next Sunday's feast of St Michael and All Angels (especially given that the repeat will be on that day!

[ardcarp]

...they generally manage to get Advent and Christmas right

[Wychwood]

[QUOTE=ferneyhoughgeliebte;756721]http://www.for3.org/forums/showthrea...ay%27s+the+Day

(The schedule details for each date in 1969, '79. & '89 appear at the bottom of each entry. I began the Thread at the start of the year - recent gardening activities, and an eye problem have meant that I've had to neglect it. ).[/rQUOTE]

So sorry to read that, fhg. I'm sure everyone here wishes you well, and looks forward to more "Days" -- but only if and when you feel up to it.

[mw963]

Still wrong thread but a host has replied so here goes.
BBC is now the only organisation in the arts that has a substantial input to arts education in schools through its website. Without it many fine orchestras would disappear and who would take on the proms, the world’s greatest music festival? I’ve been editing some archive recordings from the 70s and 80s and believe me I don’t want to go back to such patronising programme presentation or such frankly undistinguished orchestral playing by today’s standards. I don’t wish to lose what we’ve got today and if you want continuous music get your recorders programmed.

Well as I have said so often, we're never going to agree about it. However, I would observe that your remark about "patronising programme presentation" says a lot more about you than you perhaps realise.....

Where I would agree with you is that some of the orchestral playing wasn't perhaps of today's standards (I'm thinking of one BBC orchestra in particular). However, that's how it was at the time, and players were no doubt doing their best. I'm sure they'd be delighted to read your disparaging comments.

Having for years supported the BBC I now find myself increasingly agreeing with those who argue that in these days of increased choice it's an anachronism that one is forced to pay out to one selected organisation in order to legally access the content of others. If the BBC is really so good it will no doubt survive alternative methods of funding, and can be paid for by the people who are in sympathy with its current beliefs and ideologies, not by those who no longer feel it shares their values.

[jonfan]

I’m not aware of alternative choices available in funding orchestras, proms, schools’ ten pieces, new generation artists, etc. What are the values, beliefs and ideologies you no longer share? The BBC recognises their audience consists of minorities, some bigger than others. I can’t see a weekly CE surviving anywhere else though webcasts could be a way forward. I see the licence fee as funding a universal service that is there for the benefit of all these minorities when they wish to access it, just like the national parks, NHS, there when you need it.

[Resurgam]

Probably an archive recording because Wells have yet to appoint a new DoM

[weston752]

Probably an archive recording because Wells have yet to appoint a new DoM

Be reassured that the Acting DoM has certainly risen to meet the professional challenge he has faced - and Wells has today been celebrating 25 years of Girls in the Cathedral Choir, in the presence of the Earl and Countess of Wessex.

[decantor]

By the way, does anyone have the stats for live versus repeat CEs over the past couple of years?

According to my personal records of broadcast Choral Evensongs between the start of October 2017 and the end of this month, 61 were live and 43 recorded. The “recorded” category includes archive services from years in the past and those where the recording took place just days or weeks before transmission. My own view is that in most cases the CE audience is ill-served by these random ‘pre-recordings’.

I also had a personal impression that “visiting” choirs – that is, choirs that either were not primarily liturgical or were not usually associated with the venue – were being featured increasingly often in CE. My impression was largely false: ‘home’ choirs sang 92 of the services, ‘visitors’ only 12 in the same period. But it remains true that I myself enjoy a broadcast CE so much more when we hear a ‘home’ choir that sings the full Opus Dei, such that we eavesdrop their Wednesday service, rather than hear one specially staged for us midweek. In the liturgy, I look for choral impact ahead of choral excellence.

About R3 in general (as also broached in this thread) I can only say that my home has now fallen all but silent: with just a very few honourable exceptions, most R3 programmes (they call them ‘shows’, for heaven’s sake!) are freighted with so much emetic – endless chattering frivolity, a cocktail-party ambience, grinding trail after grinding trail – that silence is preferable, and I lack the technology to find alternative sources. I resent it bitterly, particularly when the BBC writes to tell me that I must soon resume paying for their licence in my old age. They offer me almost nothing beyond CE, and even that is constantly degraded. Friend of Radio 3? Hmm.

[mopsus]

What exactly do you mean by 'choral impact'? Something very loud, something that moves you? The word gets used nowadays about any sort of change or effect, although to me it always suggests a punch in the face or a car crash!

[DracoM]

Reminder: today @ 3.30 p.m.

[gurnemanz]

I really enjoy Choral Evensong, mainly for the music rather than the liturgy. I am an old codger and was an undergraduate in Durham umpteen years ago but still have fond memories of being able to listen to Evensong in the cathedral - what an environment to listen to this music! I am not a church-goer but am chairman at our local Choral Society and it is good to keep in touch with this type of music. I worked in Leipzig for several years - my wife grew up there - and we regularly used to attend the free weekly Thomanerchor performances of cantatas and motets (I knew the organist there - Bach's successor! - as his English teacher), so I am very pleased that the BBC continues with its evensong broadcasts, because where I now live I am not able to experience this music in situ on a regular basis. It makes little difference to me whether the music is transmitted live or recorded.

I am very grateful to these CE threads for the insights into this music which it affords to a non-expert like me, but I do find the atmosphere here somewhat rarefied and generally feel a bit like an eavesdropper with little to contribute. The negativity, not to say sourness, that seems to prevail here with reference to Radio 3 in general is for me somewhat off-putting and rather baffling. For example, comments above such as "most R3 programmes (they call them ‘shows’, for heaven’s sake!) are freighted with so much emetic – endless chattering frivolity, a cocktail-party ambience, grinding trail after grinding trail" are for me unfair, superficial and overstated. There might be some of that sort of stuff but there is mercifully little evidence of it between midday and 5pm. If there were, I would probably not be listening. I have been listening to Radio 3 for well over 50 years and agree that some recent trends are unwelcome, but do not expect everyone to share my preferences in presentation style. A very good friend of mine loves the morning programmes. I tend not to tune in before mid-day, but still find plenty to relish on the Radio 3 schedule. If it doesn't appeal, I play recorded music or listen to internet stations of which there are many excellent ones (including MDR Klassik from Leipzig, just for old times' sake). I have recently taken the plunge and subscribed to Spotify. I really appreciate the lunchtime concerts, being a Lieder fanatic and lover of chamber music. I mostly enjoy Composer of the Week and will usually take in the afternoon concerts, often on headphones in the garden whilst pruning or pottering or just sitting down and relaxing.

A a music-lover and Friend of Radio Three, but with a plethora a alternatives available, I feel I have never had it so good.

[DracoM]

This Forum sub-section is designed to give posters the opportunity to comment, appraise choirs and places where they sing, and educate other forumistas. It is a tricky world, a world fuelled by and even snared now and again by tradition, pride, doubts, assertions, argument and opinion.
BUT
at base, the cathedral communities, both in what they provide in terms of weekly services / music on R3, and in what and how they educate their children in these ensembles, are part of the highly necessary network of powerhouses and workshops to the musical world. Composers, instrumentalists, singers, archivists, librarians are midwives to the next generations.

How they 'perform' is for me one part only. My fervent commitment to the choral world and the huge benefits it impresses on all - including both participants and listeners - springs from witnessing and living with the huge impact such disciplines and wide range of emotional self-expression have on the youngest to the oldest singers in that tradition. It is a complex,lifelong legacy. On that basis alone, CE is worthwhile. But it is the thrill of knowing that we, in listening to live or archived services, are in at the birth of much that will enrich in so many ways.

My guess is that criticisms of the singing etc etc are bred not from carping dislike, but more, from the huge desire for that service to fulfil an intimidating number of objectives. In such circumstances, the tiniest slip, the tiniest departure from pre-conceived, pre-loved experiences and thus pre-formed expectations can be a disappointment, but, I suspect, for far fewer of the total audience / congregation.

WE should be grateful that the really experienced posters on these threads can be illuminating both in their disappointment and their celebration, since it is always likely that they will educate US as well as help to re-define their own reactions in the process of examining and assessing.

I have learnt hugely, and learnt to value even more the ensembles and support systems behind them. They are a huge part of our common musical future.